


the true name

by negativeman



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 00:26:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18435236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/negativeman/pseuds/negativeman
Summary: It means 'joy'.





	the true name

**Author's Note:**

> i still don't know how to use this website!!!
> 
> this started out as me wanting to write something about chara's relationship with kitchen because it's one of MY favorite books and how it helped them understand their gender identity and influenced their worldview and then it snowballed into something much longer lol
> 
> that being said the italicized sentences in this are from kitchen if it wasn't obvious! abuse and suicide are referenced but there's nothing graphic.
> 
> this fic heavily takes from my own interpretation/headcanon of chara's past, wherein they lived somewhere very rural and the community put a heavy emphasis on religion (christianity to be specific) (deltarune? deltarune anyone?) so if that's something that bothers you look out
> 
> chara/asriel is like kind of implied but they do not see each other as siblings and there is no incest allowed here
> 
> the end references a post-pacifist ending where everyone is alive and happy because i say so

You're nine years old and standing in the throne room with Asriel, yellow petals brushing your bare ankles.

  
(You had fallen in too-small clothes, torn and ruined by mud and blood. You were more than happy to get rid of them and wear the nice new wardrobe your adoptive family provided for you, but today your heels hang over the backs of your sneakers and your pants are rolled up to your knees.)

  
He's sitting in his father's place. His feet don't touch the ground and he's swinging his legs. You had been chasing each other through the flowers and now he's babbling happily, an accompanying chorus to the birdsong.

  
You're pretending to listen, content to keep your face tilted upwards and your eyes shut, content to imagine that there are fluffy white clouds above you instead of a hard still ceiling.

  
Then something he's saying sticks out, and you turn to him.

  
"... he'd let us, I think, 'cause then it'd be more like practice than playing pretend! I could be the king, and, um, you could be the queen--"

  
He keeps going, and he looks bashful now, too, tugging on one of his ears like he does when he's embarrassed, but you aren't paying any attention to that.

  
"I'm not a girl," you say, cutting him off, and your own boldness surprises you.

  
His nose twitches and wiggles. Usually this is a gesture that softens and fills you with something like homesickness, quickly and easily shaken away by the reminder that where you were before was hardly a home. Right now, it makes you mad.

  
(You miss your rabbits.)

  
"N-No, but..." he says, and he looks confused, but not apologetic. Why do you feel even angrier in its absence? Since when do you expect apologies? Since when do you deserve them?

  
You've only been in the underground a few months. You know exactly to the date how long, thanks to the calendar hanging in the hallway.

  
Not nearly enough time to have earned their kindness. Not nearly enough time to have earned your place.

  
"I can't be a queen," you say, and you realize that you sound a little desperate under the indignation, because you want him to understand, you thought he understood, you thought it was _different_ here, "I am not a girl." this time you spit the word and it hurts your teeth, like you've bitten into something too sweet and too cold too quickly.

  
"I know!" he squeaks, in a way you're familiar with. He wants to be sorry, but he doesn't know what he did wrong, and how can he not when you're telling him plainly?

  
(He's kind of an idiot, sometimes, and he puts his foot in his mouth when he's especially curious or excited, but he's still much, much nicer than you merit.)

  
He's shrinking back into his seat, looking even smaller as he draws his knees to his chest and his brows furrow. Experience tells you this means your expression is doing something he doesn't like or doesn't understand or both.

  
Your jaw's getting sore because you're smiling hard and wide and toothy.

  
"B, But, I wanted... I wanted to be king, but, if you really don't, I guess I can--"

  
You turn and you run, shoes forgotten.

 

 

(Toriel finds you in Hotland, your palms and the soles of your feet red and blistered, your tears evaporating before they can roll down your cheeks. She heals you and carries you home, where a crying Asriel tells you he is in fact sorry, and you spend the rest of the evening on her lap as she sits in her chair and reads to you.)

 

 

_It was then that a miracle, a godsend, came calling one afternoon._

 

 

Your identity had been decided for you from the moment you opened your eyes, and so when that particular part doesn't fit, you think: of course it doesn't.

  
(Nothing fits you right. Your existence is a mistake, a curse, a test of faith. You are a burden.)

  
Eventually you no longer fear the unknown as much as you hate being confined to your village, and you hunt down enough change for bus fare and end up in the closest city with no idea of what to do with yourself. In retrospect, you're lucky no one stops you and drags you to a police station. You wander aimlessly past buildings as tall as the mountain your home is nestled under, clutching your arms.

  
The sight of the library excites you, and not only because you recognize it for what it is.

  
(The 'library' you're used to is compromised of several dog-eared bibles and two books of fairy tales.)

  
You're greeted by a rush of cool air when the doors open for you and while you do at first shuffle to the children's section, your attention is diverted elsewhere fast.

  
You sit on the floor and you read. And read, and read, and read, and though there are many words you don't understand and many topics that go over your head, you can't remember ever being happier.

  
The cover of _Kitchen_ is plain when you pluck it off the shelf. A young woman stands with her hands behind her back, smiling serenely, and when you flip it over, you see that she's holding a bouquet of wildflowers. This is what inspires you to open the novel.

  
You finish it before the library closes, and spend the rest of your time there thumbing back through the pages until the passages come as easily to you as a prayer.

  
You consider taking it home-- you don't have a library card, but it's small, and would be easy enough to hide beneath your t-shirt. You're skilled at squirreling things away, whether it be food or otherwise.

  
(You don't. What would happen if someone discovered it? You come back whenever you can, instead, and keep it near by even when you have another book in your hands.)

 

 

_For me everything had been agony._

 

 

Your concept of beauty has always been skewed. For the first time, you see it in words.

  
Surely some of the villagers are beautiful, but when their gazes are on you their expressions are so twisted with cruelty and hate that they blur into a haze of bruising grips and sharp sneers.

  
The only way to avoid it is not to look at all.

 

 

You decide no one is going to know what _Kitchen_ has taught you. This is an easy task, because you aren't allowed to go to school with the other kids anymore and you've been more than dissuaded from sharing with your family.

  
Even so, you make it a promise, mouthed silently against a paperback cover. A promise that it will be yours, and no one else's, because you can't bear the idea of this feeling being taken away.

  
You decide you are a _they_. The library becomes your directory, and you contemplate names for weeks and months until one fits.

  
It means 'joy'.

 

 

It is said that those who climb Mt. Ebott never return.

  
Your town sits at its base, the only bar separating you from the monsters legends say live on the slope a thicket of trees and the blind faith of its people.

  
You find yourself mentally making the path to the top as you move through your chores outdoors almost every day. You imagine pushing through woods and trudging through streams. You wonder what would kill you first. When you were smaller than you are now, you can remember overhearing conversations between your parents and others, plots that never came to fruition to take you as far as they dared into the forest and leave you there.

  
(You had hoped for a more strategic ending when you read Hansel and Gretel. There is no loving father coming to save you.)

  
The older you get the more appealing taking your fate into your own hands is, if only out of spite. If only because the illusion of choice is almost as appealing to you as the peace it guarantees.

  
Will they carry you up the mountain, or will you carry yourself? Will some fanged and clawed beast take your life when you get there? Or will you lie down in the soil and let nature be your executioner?

  
The options dangle in front of you: humans, monsters...

  
Flowers.

 

 

You are regularly made to sleep in the barn, so sneaking away in the dead of night is startlingly easy. Mikage would be proud of you, you think, taking off in the dark with nothing but a knife in your pocket, even if no boy with gentle eyes is waiting for you at your destination.

  
(You say a tearful good-bye to all of the animals, first, starting with the dogs and ending with you kneeling in front of the rabbit hutch.)

  
The stars urge you to shamble onward and you're beaming so hard your cheeks ache.

  
You're excited. You're happy.

  
You're going to be free.

 

 

_The son that Eriko had brought up so gently was suddenly revealed to be a prince._

 

 

When you open your eyes there's a face above you, haloed by the light of the hole you'd fallen into. Somewhere between crying out for help and now, you'd lost consciousness. Everything hurts.

  
The face does not belong to a human being.

  
"Are you okay? Here, get up," he says, in the kindest voice you've heard, and extends a paw.

  
(If it weren't for the pain, you might think you were dead. If you weren't you, you might think the face belonged to an angel.)

  
You taste blood on your tongue and your lips.

  
"Chara, huh? That's a nice name."

  
Your foot is bent at a funny angle. Your angel is smiling.

  
"My name is..."

 

 

(The sting of 'she' never comes, nor the clumsiness of 'he'.

  
There are other monsters who use 'they', too.)

 

 

_There are many days when all the awful things that happen make you sick at heart, when the path before you is so steep you can't bear to look._

  
_Not even love can rescue a person from that._

 

 

You don't occupy it for long, but 'Chara' is still the name engraved on your coffin.

 

 

When you wake up...

  
When you wake up.

 

  
There is a mirror in the form of a terrified child with a bandaged wrist and haunted eyes. They pick themself up and stand on shaking legs in a patch of golden flowers.

  
"They must have broken your fall." you tell them, when they take a few steps towards the exit and then return, clutching a stick to their chest.

  
But why are _you_ here? Hadn't the plan failed? What is your purpose?

  
You don't understand.

 

 

...Oh.

 

 

It's not that they are your reflection. It's that you are their shadow.

  
They're like you.

 

 

_But I'm not free, I realized; I've been touched by Yuichi's soul._

 

 

You're nineteen years old and standing on a sandy beach, waves crashing against your calves before the ocean draws in another sigh and pulls away again.

  
"--hold on, Frisk, they're spacing out," you hear Asriel say, and you look from the far off horizon to see them both a few feet away from you in waist-deep water, Frisk soaked from head to toe and Asriel in a similar state (and disgruntled about it).

  
"What is it I am meant to be doing?" you ask, adjusting the brim of your hat. Frisk is signing at you frantically before the words even finish leaving your mouth, sending water flying in all directions.

  
'Watch my handstand!' they say, excitedly, and dive beneath the rolling tide while Asriel hovers nearby, prepared to steady them if they fall. You applaud enthusiastically when they surface, and as they paddle out further you wade to Asriel's side and squint as you tilt your face back to peer at him. "So? Your first impression of the beach?"

  
His lip curls and you have to snicker. "I feel like I've gained thirty pounds," he grumbles. "I don't think swimming's as fun when you're covered in fur."

  
You smile winningly. "They call that water weight," you say, and he groans.

  
Frisk is waving something in the air from where they are. You think it might be a crab.

  
"Don't go too far!" Asriel calls. "Mom'll kill us if you drown!"

  
You see Frisk shake with laughter, and you tip over and rest against Asriel's shoulder. Sort of. He's gotten really tall.

  
"Nice day, today," he says, quietly, after a moment.

  
(It is. The skies are clear.)

  
"If you're into that sort of thing," You're riding the urge to be contrary.

  
There's no response, no sigh or chuckle. You glance up again.

  
"Um, Chara," he starts. "About the coronation."

  
"I'll be there."

  
"You don't have to." his eyes are pleading with you.

  
"But I will." you reply. It's going to be abysmal, nationally broadcast and crowded and a myriad of other things you hate, but you're determined.

  
You watch him sag with relief. "Okay," he croaks.

  
"How will you appoint me the royal advice-giver if I do not even attend your coronation?" you ask, nudging him with an elbow.

  
"Pulling the strings from behind the scenes already, huh?" there's gratitude in his touch when he reaches for your hand. "I do want to give you an official title, though. I, er, I just..."

  
You grin, sunny and bright and so genuine it sickens you. Who are you, Frisk?

  
"What do you want to be called?"

 

 

_Whatever comes, together._


End file.
